Werewolves

 Scripture calls us to "follow hard after God." The root meaning of that is to cling to Him with all our strength. I think a secondary understanding is that doing so is just what the words say; hard. Following Him wholeheartedly isn't easy. Indeed it's costly. It takes us through hard places and hard times, and most often as we walk there we'll hear Him say little else except, "Trust Me!." We want more than that, but He doesn't often comply.

I heard a woman named Jennifer Rothschild, who suffered blindness at the age of 15, say that "There are seasons when we weary of our allowed darkness." We can all say "amen" to that. We can get very weary. Maybe you're very weary right now. So, what she says next may not be what we want to hear, yet we must listen anyway. "We can thrive in the dark, but only through the Light of His Word." How many of us would describe what we experience in the dark as "thriving?" Yet I believe she's right.

When I was a small boy, I greatly feared the dark. I was not helped by the reality that I had two older brothers who really enjoyed giving me detailed descriptions of the werewolves, ghosts, and witches who were lurking outside my window. My father would tell me that there wasn't anything there in the dark that wasn't also there in the light. He obviously hadn't seen the werewolves that I KNEW were there and about to pounce. I needed a weapon, and the only one I had was my brother's old, dull boy scout pocket knife. It wasn't much, but somehow it made me feel safe. Bring on the werewolves! I was ready!

Once, on the program "Antiques Roadshow," someone brought a solid gold sword, awarded to a Civil War general by the President himself. It was inscribed with the words, "Courage, Valor, Honor." Commenting on this, Rothschild said that the Father does the same in giving us His Word of promise. In His Word we find hope, courage, perseverance, strength, and most of all His Living Word of Life, Jesus Christ. He not only speaks in and through His Word, He is the Word Himself. He and His Word are our sword, and it was said of the truly great warriors of old that no one could tell where their sword ended and their arm began. If we're to be true overcomers, the same must be said of us. Can people tell where His Word in us ends and we begin, or are we truly as one?

The darkness will remain to some degree in this life. Sometimes to a very great degree. There are going to always be things that we don't understand, roadways ahead that we can't see. His words to us are simply, "Trust Me!" Trust what He's spoken and continues to speak. Trust when you don't know but know that He does. He asks a lot because that is what following hard after Him entails. It calls for a total investment of yourself coupled with total trust in Him. Trusting in the darkness. Thriving in the darkness as we walk in the Light of His Word. His Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who has conquered all darkness, including the darkness we may presently be walking through.

If we'll do so, we will, like Moses, "enter into the thick darkness....where God was," and is. Let the werewolves, real and imagined, come. They are defeated. Not by a dull pocket knife, but by the power and victory of His Word. We will come through and we will thrive. Let us trust Him, even in the deepest darkness. He is there, and He reigns....forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Unfailing Love

 Back in the early 90's, I was seeking to share about the life to be had with a young guy I worked with named Ron. Ron was trapped in a life of drug use, anger, bitterness, and hopelessness. One day he lashed out at me, saying that what I was telling Him of that life didn't seem to be working for me. I was a pastor who wasn't in full time ministry. My marriage had broken up and I was working at a job that gave little satisfaction. From his perspective, I'd lost everything. How could I talk about a Jesus who makes all the difference when the results indicated to him that He'd made no difference to me at all?

Questions like these will come to all who journey through life with Christ. We will encounter pain, suffering, and loss. Jesus said that we would. To the world, it's a fair question; how can we trust Him when He seems to have forgotten us? How can we follow Him when He seems to be leading us nowhere except ever deeper into the wilderness? I find answers for these questions in John 11 with the account of Jesus, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. 

Jesus was with His disciples when word came to Him that His beloved friend, Lazarus, was sick. Sick unto death. His disciples expected Him to go to Lazarus immediately, but instead, He stayed where He was for two more days. Finally He set out, and the disciples held to the hope that Lazarus could be saved. Jesus simply said, "Lazarus is dead!" When He came to the village where Lazarus had lived, along with his sisters Martha and Mary, He was met first by Martha, and then Mary. Both said the same thing to Him. "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." Left unsaid was the question, "Lord, why weren't You here? Where were You? Why would you allow this?" Watching all of this were more than a few "Ron's," asking the question, "This man healed a blind man. Why couldn't He keep Lazarus from dying?" What they meant was that the Lord must not have cared, couldn't have helped anyway, or....both.

You likely know the rest of the story. Lazarus was in a sealed tomb and dead for three plus days. In Jewish thinking and belief, he was past all hope of being brought back to life. Jesus ordered the stone removed and then called Lazarus forth from his grave. He did come out, and to the joy and amazement of all. Yet, there was no joy or amazement before this. Just pain and loss. Life with Christ can be like that at times. And we can come to Him with the same questions as Martha and Mary....and Ron. Maybe you're coming to Him with those questions right now. If so, these words of Christ must come to live in your heart. When Martha hesitated to order the stone removed as Lazarus had been dead for more than three days and the body would be decaying, He said, "Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?" That is our answer in all of our "Why's?" In the death of our dreams, hopes, and plans and in the center of our current wilderness, He calls us..."Believe Me!" Believe Him and we will see His glory. Martha and Mary did. Lazarus did. I did. 

Romans 10:11 says, "Whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed." As writer and pastor R.T. Kendall says, "God will clear His name." Little more than a month or so after Ron's biting observation of my life, the Lord opened the door for my re-entering into full time ministry. Since then He has given to me far more than all that I had lost. The wilderness time had been very hard, and I had my own share of questions, but I kept determined to believe, even when my heart grew faint. What He gave back to me was far more than all I had lost. In his book, The Unfailing Love Of Jesus, Kendall says that it's likely that if Jesus had been there Lazarus wouldn't have died, but neither would he have been raised from the dead, which was a far greater thing. Wherever you may feel that death in some form has taken a grip on your life, stealing joy, hope, and life, BELIEVE! Believe Him. Hold to Him. You will see His glory. God, who cannot lie, has promised. The promise is sealed with the blood of His Son.

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Search

 Long ago the LORD said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself." Jeremiah 31:3

It's a new year, and we'll be bombarded with all kinds of new year related advertising. Two of the most prevalent will be directed at either finally getting in shape or finally finding love. It's the latter that I want to focus on today.

It seems impossible that anyone, particularly a single person, is not made very aware of all the various "dating sites" that are available, and there seems to be a never ending line of people seeking to make use of them. "Find Love In 2024," will be a rallying cry for many. It's a powerful appeal because everyone wants to find love. Everyone wants to be loved. We can be desperate in our search. We can also leave a long trail of destruction in that search. Destruction of ourselves and of those we've encountered along the way. I know. I was part of the desperate crowd. You may have been as well. Maybe you still are.

We were created for love, to love and be loved. Our human ancestors Adam and Eve knew that love. Perfect love in their Creator God. Then, through their disobedience, sin entered into the world and their relationship with Him and His love was severed. He didn't cease to love us, we lost the ability to truly love Him. Yet their hunger for that love remained. Sin caused them, and in turn, us, to seek to find that love in a multitude of counterfeit ways. More than that, our understanding of love became severely flawed. We desperately wanted love, but we didn't know what real love was, and neither did we know how to give or receive it. We are wounded people looking for a love that can only be realized in Him. As a result, we end up wounding each other. Wounded parents wound their children. Wounded husbands and wives wound each other. And that which we were created for seems further and further away from our ever realizing. And it can go on even after entering into a saving relationship with Christ. He has to teach us how to love. How to not only give love, but receive it. I know, because He had to do so with me.

We live in a fallen world and that fallenness touches every aspect of our lives, especially in our relationships. We can not escape the wounding that comes with this broken world. In our families, marriages, and every kind of intimate relationship. We keep asking fallen, broken people to give us what only He can. The preponderance of broken marriages and relationships is proof of this. We always think the next one will be THE ONE, but it rarely, if ever is. And we will live in this cycle of defeat and destruction until the reality of Jeremiah becomes our reality. It took many years, but it finally did for me. I pray it will for you as well.

For years I looked for a person to give me what only He could give me. Perfect, unconditional love. Love that met me where I was, accepted me as I was, and filled that void that I kept asking people to fill but never could. Love, His love, that captured my heart, mind, emotions, and spirit. Love that was so full, so rich, so satisfying, that even if there was no particular person in my life, I was still living with a deep sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. Like the old Keith Green song goes, His love broke through. I had finally and fully found love. His love. And nothing was ever the same again. He filled the void. He was, is, the only One who can.

I don't know if this registers with you, but I'll close with this story told by James Robison about his wife Betty. She had always struggled to believe God loved her. As a result, she felt crippled emotionally and spiritually. She sought Him, but the emptiness continued. Finally, one night as she and James lay in bed, he reading and she praying, she began to softly weep. Alarmed, James asked what was wrong. She simply replied, "He's loving me." She was captured by His love. She was made whole. So too, in ways I can't explain, was I, and healing and wholeness have been the result. Healing and wholeness that continue to take place in me. I no longer look for love, I simply receive it. His love. Beloved, may it be so for you this year, this week, this day. Embrace His love, for He surely reaches to you in order to give it.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Shattered

I've always been drawn to Scriptures that speak to and about the heart. The heart is where the person we truly are is found. It's where Christ abides in those who have received Him, and where He seeks to do His deepest work in a person's life. It's also where the deep wounds of our lives are found, where our brokenness is. Our heart is what He is always speaking to. 

Psalm 147:3 says, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." A beautiful promise and one I've experienced many times over. Even so, I don't think I've ever realized the depth and truth of this promise, and how much I, we, continue to need its reality in our lives. 

In his book, "Waking The Dead," John Eldredge says that the great reason for so much of our pain and struggle is that we are not "wholehearted." This is not news concerning followers of the Lord Jesus. Most any pastor can attest to this, yet even pastor's fail to grasp the depth of what He says here. While it's true that a lack of wholehearted commitment to Him does hinder our walk and life, we tend to stop there and make it all about being committed to Him. It's something we "do." We miss the reason why the commitment is lacking. People cannot give their whole hearts because their hearts are not whole.

The Hebrew meaning of the word "broken" is more extensive than what usually comes to mind in the English translation. The meaning carries the idea of being shattered into many, almost countless pieces. Due to the fall of the human race because of sin, we are born broken. Born with broken hearts. The effects of this fallen world have only brought about ever increasing brokenness to them. All of us have suffered the shattering of our hearts into countless pieces. Some of those pieces can be so small as to escape detection, but the emptiness produced by even the smallest pieces can have crushing effects upon a life. Yet these pieces haven't escaped His detection. He sees them all. Could it be that the pieces of your heart that remain broken and shattered today to such a degree that they can never be brought back together, can never be made whole again? The pain is too great. What has been lost is too far gone. Yet, can you dare to believe that there is One who can put even the most shattered heart and life back together? One who can make your heart and your life whole. His name is Jesus.

Jesus Christ came into a broken world to give whole and full life. He still comes to it through the broken hearts of those He finds there. Our hearts are like priceless vases to Him and though they may be shattered at His feet, beyond any human repair, He will reach down, gather those pieces together into His hands, even the smallest piece, and speak healing to them. He can make the vase, your heart, whole again. Beautiful again. Those jagged shards of our hearts that cut both ourselves and others, are taken into His hands and fashioned anew. He does not give us back our old, fallen, broken heart, but a new and re-made one.

We spend our lives trying to pick up all the broken and shattered pieces of our hearts that sin has caused us. We do so through relationships, possessions, professions, even ministries. We always think that if we just find the right person, the right job, home, car, or whatever piece we feel is missing, we'll find the wholeness we're born longing for. We never do. That's why the Father sent His Son into a world broken beyond human ability to repair. He sent Him to our broken hearts. To your broken heart. Have you received Him? Have you been made whole in Him?

There's a lyric from an old song by The Rolling Stones that goes, "Look at me, I'm shattered." Might this lyric be yours as well? We've all been shattered, but no life has been shattered beyond His ability to reach down, no matter how far down our brokenness has taken us, and bring every broken piece together. No heart has traveled into such darkness and death that He cannot bring it to light and life. No heart. Not even yours. Would you have that today? Trust His work. Trust His heart. Trust Him. It's why He came. It's why He comes to you.

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Radical Faith

 The 8th chapter of the book of Ezra can both inspire and convict. Scripture has a unique way of doing both. Artaxerxes, the king of Persia has given Ezra the priest permission to take a number of fellow Israelites back to their homeland and to Jerusalem. He's even supplied gold, silver, and ample supplies for the journey. Still, it would be dangerous, with many potential enemies along the way. Ezra knew if he asked the king for troops to provide protection that they'd be given, but instead, he gathered the people together to pray. He says in verses 22-23, "We prayed that He would give us a safe journey and protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled. For I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to accompany us and protect us from enemies along the way. After all, we had told the king, 'Our God protects all those who worship Him, but His fierce anger is against those who abandon Him.' So we fasted and earnestly prayed that our God would take care of us, and He heard our prayer."

2500 years in the future, this is very inspiring. What great faith! Yet, how many, both watching and participating may have seen this as too radical and too unrealistic. It was a dangerous journey. They would need protection. Wasn't it insane to pass on the provision of the king's protection? Here's where the conviction comes with Ezra's words. They'd been testifying of the faithfulness of their God. It was their witness. Now their witness would be put to the test. Would they really believe and trust the God they said they believed and trusted? Would they risk everything in their trust of a God who expected them to take Him at His word, even when it seemed the height of insanity to do so? How many well meaning people around them were telling them just that? How many fellow believers were doing the same?

Here in 2024, how much of our own testimony has been about living a life of trust in Him? Of believing and obeying Him? How many have heard us say these things? Friends, family, co-workers? What happens if, when, He, as He did Ezra and the people, requires you to act on what it is you profess? Act in such a way that will affect every part of your life, putting all of it at risk? Your marriage, family, job, ministry, finances and resources. All of these, and with no more assurance than that He has promised to provide, make a way, protect you all along that way. How many "well meaning" voices, many of them other "believers," would tell you, are telling you, that such an outlook is too radical, that you're not being realistic, and that your choice to show forth such trust, really does look........insane? Add to all this a question; why, at least in western Christianity, is this kind of lifestyle faith seen as abnormal? Does it seem abnormal to you?

Some time ago I began to pray that God would make the inner me match what my outer person appeared to be. That my life would match my testimony. That, when called to step out into nothing more than His promise, I would do so. I would need no assurances other than He who has called me has promised to provide and care for me all along the way. As a young man first responding to His call to ministry, I joyfully did so. I carried little with me but my faith. Now, all these years later, I carry so many more "goods" with me. The risk is greater. Will I still believe the God who calls and promises that He's greater than any risk involved? Any danger along the way? Can you? Or, have we fallen into the trap of believing we need to be realistic. We have no room for a truly radical faith.

The challenges we face in 2024 may well be the greatest of our lifetime. The people of God, the followers of Christ, need to live lives that prove He's alive. We can't do that when we appear just as anxious and fearful as those who don't know Him. All we can be in the end.....is ashamed. 

God led Ezra and the people home in safety. They rebuilt the city. The others, those who didn't risk the journey, who stayed behind in the land of their captivity, who thought them so insane for going to begin with? They remained in captivity. They died in captivity. That's where unbelief always leaves us. In this coming year, in 2024, where will your faith in Him take you....and where will your unbelief leave you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Dry Bones

 There's a powerful passage of Scripture found in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel that's familiar to many. Familiar, but unrealized to most. God speaks to the prophet Ezekiel concerning the desolate and seemingly hopeless state of the nation and people of Israel. The nation had been conquered and most of the people enslaved and taken to Babylon. Or they were living in bondage in a land that was no longer theirs. Into this darkness and despair steps God the Father, the Lord of Hosts.

God will never be One to soften the realities before us. He shows Ezekiel the vision of a valley of dry bones. These bones signify both the nation and the people. There are few sights more hopeless than countless mounds of dried out, long dead bones, whose life had left them long ago. Yet in this picture God asks a simple but direct question. "Son of man, can these bones live?" Faced with such a picture, how would you and I answer? Ezekiel hands it back to Him, saying in essence, "Lord, only You have the answer to that one." To that one and all other ones as well, and it's here that He begins to give the answer.

In verse 11, He shows His awareness of the hearts and minds of His people, noting, "They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' but to this He speaks, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says, 'I will bring you back.....I will put My Spirit in you, and you will live.' " The chapter then recounts how the Lord spoke and the bones began to come together, took on flesh, and finally made alive again when He breathed His breath and life into them. What had been completely dead, dried up, and seemingly long gone, was given back. He gave it back. He gave it life. His life. New life. True life.

What in your life lies before you as a valley of dead, dry bones? What relationships with your mate, children, family, and friends, have become a valley of dry bones? What hopes and what dreams? What dead, dry bones from your yesterday's continue to lie before you, mocking, clinging, refusing to let go? What failures, sins, and brokenness? Can you believe that into them all He would come and ask, "Child, can these bones live again?" Can they? True, there are some things that need to die and be buried, but hope, joy, peace, wholeness, reconciliation, and restoration are never among them.

Satan, the enemy of our souls knows this, and will constantly seek to have us believe his lie that our lives can never be anything but dead, dry, yellow and lifeless bones. He does so because as John Eldredge writes, "The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one (satan) who knows what you could be and fears it." God knows what you can be. He created you to be that. He can cancel every trick, lie, ploy of the enemy and make His purpose real for you. Jesus came to bring abundant life. Whole life. Our driest bones can live, will live, overflowing with His life if we will have it. The life He gives and offers is before you now. Take it. Turn from all that brought you to that valley of bones. Receive the breath and healing of His life. Live again. Live as you were created to live. Do it now.

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Path

 As a teen, I spent a lot of time in the neighborhood of friends who lived a couple of miles away from me. Returning home, often at night, it was much quicker to journey through the woods. In these woods was a pathway that led almost directly to my house. It was so distinct and became so familiar that no matter how dark the night may have been, I was able to keep to it. It was a good path. I always made it home.

We are still in need of pathways. We need to make it home. Doing so means we have to stay on the path. His path. Jesus proclaimed, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes unto the Father but through Me." He is the Path, the Way of and to Life. His Life. Eternal Life. David, writing in Psalm 16:11 says, "You have made known to me the path of life." We will never lack for "paths" to choose from. Many will look like excellent ways to go. Wide, clear, yet after a bit we run into great obstacles, heavy brush, or the path simply ends. We find ourselves in a place that we don't know how to get back from. The path, so clear at first, now seems to have disappeared as we try to find a way forward, or try to retrace our steps. We're lost. Yet, this would not have been so if we had truly sought the Guide, the Path that David speaks of. Scripture says that there is a way that "seems right" to a man, but "its end is death." I spent many years on that path. Then I encountered Him, His Way, and His Life. He made known to me His path of life. Has He been able to make that path known to you?

Our lives consist of choices. Choices in our realationships and how we treat those in them. Choices as to who we will follow and who it is that has authority, Lordship, over our lives. Bob Dylan wrote the song, "Got To Serve Someone," and we do. The path we choose has a ruler over it. Who rules the path you walk today?

What path are you walking today? Is it leading to life? Is it taking you closer to Him or further from Him? He'll keep His promise to make known to us, to you, the Path of Life...if we wish to really know it. Do you? That path, if we will choose it, will always end up looking like Jesus. Leading to Jesus. Always be Jesus. There will be hard places and heartaches. It will sometimes seem that you walk it alone, that no one knows you're there. Keep following. The path will lead you home....to life and to Him.

I spoke of a path I walked as a young man. A young man filled with anger and rebellion. I remember a dark, moonless night where, after consuming a goodly portion of alcohol, I was rendered nearly helpless. I'd become separated from my friends, but somehow, found my way to the path. I don't remember much about that night, but I do remember finding the path. I stumbled along, even fell down. I don't no how long it took, but it led me home. In spite of myself, it led me home. It always will. He always will.

Beloved, in this new year, which path will you keep to? Where has the one you've been on been leading you to? What has it been leading you to? If you will seek Him, He'll make known to you the path of life. Seek Him. Trust Him. Follow Him. He will get you home. He will be your home.

Blessings,
Pastor O